Creating a Digital Community in Colleges Through an Interactive Theater Intervention: Guidelines for Cyberbullying Prevention During Freshmen Orientation Week

Creating a Digital Community in Colleges Through an Interactive Theater Interventio

Return customers: foraging site fidelity and the effect of environmental variability in wide-ranging Antarctic fur seals

Strategies employed by wide-ranging foraging animals involve consideration of habitat quality and predictability and should maximise net energy gain. Fidelity to foraging sites is common in areas of high resource availability or where predictable changes in resource availability occur. However, if resource availability is heterogeneous or unpredictable, as it often is in marine environments, then habitat familiarity may also present ecological benefits to individuals. We examined the winter foraging distribution of female Antarctic fur seals, Arctocephalus gazelle, over four years to assess the degree of foraging site fidelity at two scales; within and between years. On average, between-year fidelity was strong, with most individuals utilising more than half of their annual foraging home range over multiple years. However, fidelity was a bimodal strategy among individuals, with five out of eight animals recording between-year overlap values of greater than 50%, while three animals recorded values of less than 5%. High long-term variance in sea surface temperature, a potential proxy for elevated long-term productivity and prey availability, typified areas of overlap. Within-year foraging site fidelity was weak, indicating that successive trips over the winter target different geographic areas. We suggest that over a season, changes in prey availability are predictable enough for individuals to shift foraging area in response, with limited associated energetic costs. Conversely, over multiple years, the availability of prey resources is less spatially and temporally predictable, increasing the potential costs of shifting foraging area and favouring long-term site fidelity. In a dynamic and patchy environment, multi-year foraging site fidelity may confer a long-term energetic advantage to the individual. Such behaviours that operate at the individual level have evolutionary and ecological implications and are potential drivers of niche specialization and modifiers of intra-specific competition

Winter habitat predictions of a key Southern Ocean predator, the Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella)

Quantification of the physical and biological environmental factors that influence the spatial distribution of higher trophic species is central to inform management and develop ecosystem models, particularly in light of ocean changes. We used tracking data from 184 female Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) to develop habitat models for three breeding colonies for the poorly studied Southern Ocean winter period. Models were used to identify and predict the broadly important winter foraging habitat and to elucidate the environmental factors influencing these areas. Model predictions closely matched observations and several core areas of foraging habitat were identified for each colony, with notable areas of inter-colony overlap suggesting shared productive foraging grounds. Seals displayed clear choice of foraging habitat, travelling through areas of presumably poorer quality to access habitats that likely offer an energetic advantage in terms of prey intake. The relationships between environmental predictors and foraging habitat varied between colonies, with the principal predictors being wind speed, sea surface temperature, chlorophyll a concentration, bathymetry and distance to the colony. The availability of core foraging areas was not consistent throughout the winter period. The habitat models developed in this study not only reveal the core foraging habitats of Antarctic fur seals from multiple colonies, but can facilitate the hindcasting of historical foraging habitats as well as novel predictions of important habitat for other major colonies currently lacking information of the at-sea distribution of this major Southern Ocean consumer

Global assessment of marine plastic exposure risk for oceanic birds

Plastic pollution is distributed patchily around the world’s oceans. Likewise, marine organisms that are vulnerable to plastic ingestion or entanglement have uneven distributions. Understanding where wildlife encounters plastic is crucial for targeting research and mitigation. Oceanic seabirds, particularly petrels, frequently ingest plastic, are highly threatened, and cover vast distances during foraging and migration. However, the spatial overlap between petrels and plastics is poorly understood. Here we combine marine plastic density estimates with individual movement data for 7137 birds of 77 petrel species to estimate relative exposure risk. We identify high exposure risk areas in the Mediterranean and Black seas, and the northeast Pacific, northwest Pacific, South Atlantic and southwest Indian oceans. Plastic exposure risk varies greatly among species and populations, and between breeding and non-breeding seasons. Exposure risk is disproportionately high for Threatened species. Outside the Mediterranean and Black seas, exposure risk is highest in the high seas and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the USA, Japan, and the UK. Birds generally had higher plastic exposure risk outside the EEZ of the country where they breed. We identify conservation and research priorities, and highlight that international collaboration is key to addressing the impacts of marine plastic on wide-ranging species

Global assessment of marine plastic exposure risk for oceanic birds

Plastic pollution is distributed patchily around the world’s oceans. Likewise, marine organisms that are vulnerable to plastic ingestion or entanglement have uneven distributions. Understanding where wildlife encounters plastic is crucial for targeting research and mitigation. Oceanic seabirds, particularly petrels, frequently ingest plastic, are highly threatened, and cover vast distances during foraging and migration. However, the spatial overlap between petrels and plastics is poorly understood. Here we combine marine plastic density estimates with individual movement data for 7137 birds of 77 petrel species to estimate relative exposure risk. We identify high exposure risk areas in the Mediterranean and Black seas, and the northeast Pacific, northwest Pacific, South Atlantic and southwest Indian oceans. Plastic exposure risk varies greatly among species and populations, and between breeding and non-breeding seasons. Exposure risk is disproportionately high for Threatened species. Outside the Mediterranean and Black seas, exposure risk is highest in the high seas and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the USA, Japan, and the UK. Birds generally had higher plastic exposure risk outside the EEZ of the country where they breed. We identify conservation and research priorities, and highlight that international collaboration is key to addressing the impacts of marine plastic on wide-ranging species

Managing for change: Using vertebrate at sea habitat use to direct management efforts

To understand and predict current and future distributions of animals under a changing climate it is essential to establish historical ranges as baselines against which distribution shifts can be assessed. Management approaches also require comprehension of temporal variability in spatial distributions that can occur over shorter time scales, such as inter-annually or seasonally. Focussing on the Southern Ocean, one of the most rapidly changing environments on Earth, we used Species Distribution Models (SDMs) and satellite ocean data to reconstruct the likely historical foraging habitats of Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) from three populations during the non-breeding winter (Marion Island, Bird Island and Cape Shirreff), to assess whether habitat quality has changed in recent decades. We then quantified temporal variability in distributions to assess overlap with management areas (CCAMLR – Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) and the potential for competition with fisheries. Despite notable physical ocean changes, the quality of foraging habitat during the non-breeding season has remained relatively consistent over 20 years at Marion and Bird Islands, but less so at Cape Shirreff, where reduced sea ice cover has improved habitat accessibility. Spatio-temporally explicit SDMs identified variability in habitats across the winter. Some areas overlapped significantly with fisheries activities, suggesting a potential for competition for prey resources at several key periods. A significant component of core habitat at all populations was not within the CCAMLR Convention Area. Although organisations such as CCAMLR adopt a precautionary, ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management, changes to the physical environment and developments in the fishing industry can affect how dependant species are impacted. The hindcasting of historical spatial distributions shown here are baselines against which future changes can be assessed. Given recent proposals for a system of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean, our results can be used in the design and evaluation of MPAs, be they static or dynamic. Our study also demonstrates that the core habitat of species may fall outside of areas of active management, providing an important context for the interpretation of monitoring programs and management efforts

Correction: Return Customers: Foraging Site Fidelity and the Effect of Environmental Variability in Wide-Ranging Antarctic Fur Seals.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120888.]

Utilisation distributions (UDs) for eight female Antarctic fur seals that were tracked over multiple winters.

<p>The black lines denote the 95% UD, which represents the annual foraging kernel home range of each animal. The individuals were tracked from Marion Island (blue circle) for either two or three years between 2008–2011. Grey lines show the mean position of the sub-Antarctic front (SAF), polar front (PF) and the Antarctic circumpolar current (ACC).</p

Probability of foraging site fidelity in relation to oceanographic parameters: (a) within a year and (b) between years.

<p>Curves were fitted using the best logistic GLMM respectively, as shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0120888#pone.0120888.t005" target="_blank">Table 5</a>. The grey bar represents the 95% confidence interval around the estimated effect.</p

Summary of generalised linear mixed-effect model (GLMM) comparisons: (a) GLMMs of cell use for within-year fidelity include seal identity and site as random effects; and (b) GLMMS of cell use for between-year fidelity include seal identity as a random effect (“celluse” = overlapping or non-overlapping, SST_SD = sea surface temperature standard deviation, SSHa_mean = average sea surface height anomaly, SSHa_SD = sea surface height anomaly standard deviation).

<p>Only models with a delta AIC <10 are presented and the accepted model is presented in bold.</p><p><i>k</i>, number of paramaters; LL, log-likelihood; AIC, Akaike’s Information Criterion; <b>Δ</b>AIC, difference in AIC from that of the best fitting model; <i>w</i>AIC, AIC weight.</p><p>Summary of generalised linear mixed-effect model (GLMM) comparisons: (a) GLMMs of cell use for within-year fidelity include seal identity and site as random effects; and (b) GLMMS of cell use for between-year fidelity include seal identity as a random effect (“celluse” = overlapping or non-overlapping, SST_SD = sea surface temperature standard deviation, SSHa_mean = average sea surface height anomaly, SSHa_SD = sea surface height anomaly standard deviation).</p